Tip of the Week: Pick Yourself Up & Move On
By Melanie Stone for realtormag.com
For new agents, it can feel like a personal defeat when a real estate deal falls apart. Here’s a few lessons from one practitioner on how to pick yourself up and move on after your first season in the business is a wash.
1. Enjoy the wins, but don’t take the losses personally. When I decided to try real estate, I was focused on the glamour: the showings, the branding, the opportunity to design my life and business. I didn’t realize that sales can also be hard and full of rejection. I’ve learned to remind myself every single day not to take it personally. It’s difficult because I want people to like me, but I’ve got to remember that most leads and potential clients don’t truly know me. To them, I’m just another real estate agent. First, I’ve got to make peace with that, and then I have to try to change their minds.
2. Strive for something more than awards. It feels really, really good to be recognized for your hard work, especially when you’re new to the industry. In 2015, I wanted so badly to receive that coveted Rookie of the Year title. But as soon as I stopped focusing on the acclaim, my motivation shifted. I focused more on how I could provide the best possible service to my clients rather than how I could get my name on the map. Ultimately, this mental shift came down to my faith. I realized that my identity in God was what really mattered; the awards did not. He already saw me as an award-winner, no matter what I did, so it was senseless for me to let earthly recognition control my emotional well-being.
3. Recognize when things are beyond your control. I want every single client to make it to the closing table, but in reality, transactions fall apart all the time. I had to learn to step back from each situation and understand that a sale will work out in the end if it is meant to. By now, I’ve had plenty of buyers and sellers whose deals didn’t come together, either because the buyer got cold feet or the seller had a change of heart about selling. There’s nothing I can do about that. It hurts a lot less these days, because I know that time will pass and things will eventually fall into place for them.
4. Take a break. Though I probably wouldn’t take two months off from real estate again, it ended up being really healthy for me to step back from my business during that initial rough patch and surround myself with friends and family. At the time, I was graduating from college, and there were plenty of parties to attend. It helped to take my mind off my business for a season. Now that I’m 100 percent committed to my business, I make sure to take a day to myself when I really, really need it.
5. It’s not about you. Ultimately, a career in real estate is a career in customer service. It’s about putting another person’s needs ahead of your own. Sometimes, I get wrapped up in my brand and my sales volume and my blah blah blah. I’ll scroll through Instagram, envying other agents’ new listings. But when I stop thinking about me and focus on truly serving my clients, the negativity goes away. There is no better feeling than calling one of my first-time buyers to say their offer was accepted on their first home. That is why I do what I do. And it’s why you do what you do, too.